goodguygrifter | (no subject)

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Well, Stan's been crammed deeper up the ass end of nowhere before, but that doesn't mean that creeping, uneasy feeling doesn't get worse the deeper he gets into this damn forest. It's dark, it's spooky, it's -

It's exactly like the kind of forest you used to see in those old monster movies, actually. The kind he and Ford used to sit in front of, enraptured, arguing over how many pieces the monster of the week was going to tear the ditzy teenage protagonist into.

Maybe it's not the forest that's giving him such a bad case of the heebie jeebies. He can admit that to himself now that he's almost there. His car rolls to a stop and he sits there while the engine ticks cool with his hands still in their old, familiar grips on the wheel. He gets out. He shuts the door.

"No problem," he mutters to himself, watching the door of that weird, creepy little cabin like he really is in one of those old movies and something's about to jump out and grab him. "It's only been nine years. And ten months. And fourteen days. And he doesn't even want you here. That's no, no reason to, to uh..."

The doorknob of that weird, creepy little cabin door is under his hand. If his hand moves a couple more inches, he'll open it. He'll open the door, and then he'll -

You'll what? he thinks to himself. You'll what, genius?

"Aw, shit," Stanley says, and takes one step back, and then another, still looking at the door like it's about to bite him.

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Stan straightens up at the surprise, going all stiff, and for a couple seconds his hands kind of hover over his brother's back like they don't know what they're gonna' find if they touch down. It's not like being hugged is some kind of first for him or anything, it's just-

His arms go tighter around Ford's back, his fingers go tight in Ford's shirt. His head hangs, he smells Ford's shampoo, he smells a little bit of, god, burnt skin, or is that just that, uh, 'overactive' imagination everyone told him he had as a kid coming back to bite him?

It's just that being comforted, if there's a first here that's it. Or it feels like it is. So Stan's head hangs and his brother's hair tickles his face and he says, kind of quiet, "Funny, sounds like you kinda' mean that." His voice is like Ford's voice, it ain't too steady either, but his voice ain't like Ford's, it don't sound much like he believes it. More like he wants to, he wants to, but you don't want to bet until you know you got a sure thing, at least when you bet the big money. And Stan might of been telling Ford how he knows they can do this just a minute ago and that wasn't a lie, alright, but this feels like a first and he can't bring himself to raise his head and straighten up and start trying to push Ford into believing with him just yet. He can't bring himself to really lean into Ford just yet either, though, to really lean forward against him, but you know, bets, big money. All that.

That's where Stan goes wrong, he knows that, people don't think he knows that but he does, sometimes. He throws himself into shit without figuring out how it's gonna' go down until he's run out of town because he throws himself into betting big money without really knowing. But he wants to, he wants to. Shit, it wouldn't take much.

He closes his eyes, trying to pretend he don't look as scared as he knows he does, if Ford turns his head, if he looks at all. And the truth is, the unbiased truth, is that Stan doesn't hear everything Ford wants to say there, but he hears some of it. He hears that Ford believes, or that Ford's willing to try and make sure Stan does, anyway, that Ford's going to try to take some of that weight. And what he hears, he wants that to be something he'll be able to bet on. He wants to bet on it now and, you know, maybe not just now, not just this once, maybe- Well, you know. Shit, he wants to. He wants something to push him there. It really wouldn't take much.

It's not funny, what Stan says, and yet Ford finds himself chuckling a little regardless. Leave it to his brother to make a joke during a serious moment - assuming that little offhand comment was a joke, that is. Stanley very well could have meant it sincerely, but if that was the case then that means Ford hadn't done a very good job of convincing him.

Well, they can't have that, now can they?

Ford can't exactly elbow his brother in the arm or slug him in the shoulder, not in the position they're in, but he can tilt his head to the side and bonk him in the ear, give him a little sideways headbutt.

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't. Between the two of us, I'm not the one who takes after Mom."

That might have sounded insulting, if said by anyone else, but there's no mistaking the exasperated fondness in his tone. Anyone else would have considered being a pathological liar to be a bad thing, but Ford - well, considering his raising, he's learned to think of it more as a personality quirk, a bad but mostly forgivable habit.

Stan huffs, taking it the same way. What do you know, one thing Stan's sure he can trust to mean just what it sounds like. Ma was just... Ma. That's all. She had moods. She had a big imagination, just like she always said Stanley did. She just liked games, that's all, and wanted you to play along. Stan had always been good at it.

"Come on, you know I only lie when money's on the line." It's one of those things you just say, it's a throwaway line just to have something to fill the talk in with. It's one of those things Stan just says, until he remembers that Ford ain't just any old guy who's known him for more than five minutes, Ford knew him before. Before a lot of things, apparently, because Stan realizes only after he says it that it wasn't always true, not for the guy he was when Ford knew him. The guy who came home and sat at the dinner table thinkin' about nothing more than the best way to crack his brother up by drawin' dicks in the mashed potatoes, that guy didn't give so much of a shit about money, did he? Not unless he was down in the shop tryin' to take care of some suckers for dad, talkin' some young couple into thinkin' their fancy family heirloom was worth less than half of what they wanted to get for it, something like that. If Stan ever spends too long in the same place everyone figures out that money's what really gets his motor running, everyone figures that out eventually. With people who know him kinda' well, it even turns into kind of a joke. The one in-joke that, in a really weird moment - maybe even profoundly weird - Stanley realizes that his twin brother, the guy who knows the most about him out of anyone in the entire world, might not get.

And there's a post-script on this profound moment of weird, one where Stan realizes he's not sure he wants Ford to get it. He doesn't want to give Ford time to think about it.

"You were never all that good at that 'fake it 'till you make it' stuff, though," and it might be kind of a distraction but he wants to say it too, means it so much his voice is heavy with it, with wanting to believe that what Ford said about nothing taking him away from Stan is a promise Ford isn't gonna' back out of. And maybe that awkward little headbutt thing Ford just did, that warm, fond move that made Stan feel all warm too, all warm and fuzzy and scared and all that stupid shit, maybe just the weird angle there means Ford wants Stan to move so he can give Stan a real slug on the arm or something but Stan don't move yet, he doesn't really mean to let go until the very last second, when he's absolutely got to back out or things will start to get weird. Things ain't there yet, are they? Stan can stretch it a little, he thinks. He's pretty sure he can stretch it. The grip he's got on the back of Ford's clothes doesn't loosen for a second. "So maybe you really, uh- So maybe we're really gonna' do this, huh? The Kings of New Jersey, back for just one more grand reunion show?"

"Mm. Well, I don't know about just one." It's funny, he meant for that to be a joke, a little teasing jab just for the heck of it, but he actually sounds...well, not hopeful, exactly, but something distantly related, something a few steps back and to the left.

Speculative. Yeah, that's a good word for it. He sounds like he's thinking real hard about something, like he's considering a new theory, or working on an unfamiliar equation, turning it around and around inside his head to get a better feel for it. He looks like he's thinking real hard about something too, but unless Stan decides to be the first to let go just so he can get a look at the thoughtful expression on his brother's face, he's just gonna have to picture it.

Not that that should be too hard for him. Ford still emotes the same way he did back in high-school - brows furrowed, one corner of his mouth pulled back in a quasi-grimace because if there's one thing Ford Pines can't stand, its not having the answers he wants, when he wants them.

Here he was, thinking he knew how things were going to end, thinking there was no way he was going to come out on top. He had resigned himself to it, the idea that he was damned no matter what, that there was simply nothing he could do. And you know, he's still not completely convinced he was wrong about that. There's nothing he can do against Bill, nothing he hasn't already tried or thought to try, at least - but he's not the only one trying anymore.

He's not sure how much of a difference it's going to make, if any at all, but it's something. It's a chance. A ghost of a chance, maybe, but its still more of one than he had before - and God willing, it might just be enough to get them through this.

"That's aiming a little low, isn't it? If we're going to shoot, we might as well shoot for the stars."

It hurts a little, trying to be optimistic. It feels like stretching a sore muscle, like he's taxing some untraceable part of him that's long since rusted over from disuse. He's gonna have to get used to that. If Stanley's going to stick with him for the long haul, the least he can do is try to convince them both they've got at least a snowball's chance in hell.

Stanley smiles.

He smiles and he forgets all about trying to be careful, trying not to let himself believe that Ford really wants him back, really wants to make this work, maybe for good. It's never been easy for Stan, trying not to believe things. He used to believe all sorts of things, when he was a kid. Later on the stuff he believed got kinda' different, but he always believed. He always did when it mattered, anyway.

So his smile lights him up and all his hard-won, hard-learned caution just kind of disappears like smoke, because even when he tries, Stan isn't really built to doubt. Especially not this.

"Great! So uh, um-" Still, Stan can't quite bring himself to ask about after, what happens after I've done what you needed me here to do, after we've taken this guy out, what happens then - But Ford probably doesn't want to think that far ahead either, and if neither of them want to talk about that, it's fine. His smile flickers for a second, but it'd take more than one stray thought right now to knock it off his face.

"So first we gotta' get you a good night's sleep, we'll figure somethin' out, and then, uh- Tomorrow's a brand new day, right, and all that crap? Tomorrow I'm gonna' tell you my ideas and you're actually uh, you're gonna' listen, and we'll figure somethin' out." He has to lean back now, look at Ford's face, see how he's taking it, but that's fine, Ford wants him to stick around and that almost, almost, would make any amount of distance between them okay. "That sound like a deal, or what?"

The look on Ford's face, the way he's taking things - it's probably not what Stan wanted to see. His brows are pinched, the corner of his mouth pulled back in a grimace.

"A deal? No, no I don't make deals."

At least, not anymore. Not since the last one he made came back to bite him so hard there's still chunks of him missing. Even with Stan, even with the one person in this big ugly world that he can still bring himself to trust, he just can't do it. He won't.

He can do something else, though. Something that hasn't been tarnished.

With a cautious, almost self-conscious sort of smile, Ford holds up his hand between them. He folds all but his last two fingers into his palm and is surprised by how naturally the gesture comes to him, easy as breathing, even after all these years.

"How about we make it a promise?"

Damn if that's something he ever expected to see again. He looks from Ford's hand to Ford's face and back again, but by the time his hand stops in the air somewhere in front of Ford's, the surprise on his face is something else. He looks kind of like he did right before the first time he ate cow tongue, a lot wary and a little grossed out, preemptively.

"What if I don't make promises?"

It just pops out, but it's what doesn't come out that really sends him backpedaling, it's the moment he realizes he almost said, at least, not with you that really puts that scared look on his face. Things are good, things are good for him and Ford now, why can't Stan learn when to just shut his fucking mouth?

"But I guess uh, the only thing I seen put you to sleep so far is cuttin' your own damn head open so I guess if this is you promisin' to get some shut-eye without that I can make an exception, haha."

So he holds his own fingers out too, ring and pinky, but he doesn't wrap them around Ford's, he just kind of holds them there with this hopeful grin, and bites at a scar on the inside of his lip.

Edited 2016-11-06 14:57 (UTC)

That first part throws him a little, sends him on a bit of a loop, but before he can stew too long in his own confusion Stanley goes and smooths things over, turns his slip of the tongue into a joke. (Or so Ford very generously calls it.)

His quietly puzzled look is quick to turn back into a smile, this one a little quieter than the one that preceded it.

"I'll try not to make it a habit." He replies dryly, before reaching out to hook Stan's fingers with his own.

It's strange, in a nice sort of way, how naturally their hands seem to fit together even after all these years. Sure, they've both got a few new calluses in unfamiliar places, and Ford's got the odd scar or two from various Fantastic Beasts that did not appreciate being found, but for the most part the gesture feels the same as it always has.

Just as he was the one to initiate it, Ford is also the one who pulls his hand back first - but not before jerking his hand every which way, dragging Stan's along for the ride in a completely necessary and not at all childish joy ride through the space between them.

Look, he doesn't make the rules, he just follows them.

Stan didn't know he was tense until he relaxes, but Stan's lucky again and the snicker that surprises its way out of his mouth helps him disguise his relief, lets him disguise the body language by leaning forward and nudging Ford's shoulder with his. "Okay, you definitely need some sleep."

And then, you know. Of course that dampens his spirits a little. Not a lot - not much could, now that he and Ford are - well, it'd be kind of stupid to jinx it by saying they're good, but now that they're something. Something better. But there's still the problem of Ford's dreams, the ones that drove him to do that whole... that whole head thing, that, in the first place and Stan goes right back to biting the inside of his lip, this time because he's thinking.

"Look, um, I might have something. I thought I uh-" And shit does he need some sleep too, because he was about half an inch from finishing that out with sold it all just now, "-used it up, but uh, if I did have something that'd make you sleep like a dead baby, would that work with the whole-"

He waggles his fingers around near the top of his own head. "-You know, extraterrestrial eating your brain while you sleep thing? Do prescriptions work on ancient evil? It'd at least give us time to think of something else."

For a moment, Ford looks curious, thoughtful, like he's wondering what Stan might possibly have and how it could help - but then he gives that question a little spin, turns it around in his head and takes into consideration everything he knows about Stan, and all the things he doesn't.

He blinks owlishly as his question answers itself, unable to decide how he should feel about the conclusion he's come to.

After a brief moment of consideration he decides he is both in no position to judge and also too tired to really give a shit. It wouldn't be the first time he introduced questionable substances to his system, legal or otherwise.

"...Are we talking downers or hypnotics?" He finally asks, despite being fairly certain he could be talked into taking horse tranquilizers at this point.

"Uh, I'll haveta' go see what I got." He shrugs a shoulder, this awkward, worried discomfort starting to slide through the gaps in his composure. For some reason Ford asking for specifics makes it worse, feels like they're kinda' sidling closer to the sort of shit it's important the brother who just accepted Stan back into his life don't find out about.

Stan stands, making it a little past the doorway before he realizes at least the second thing that's making this feel all weird is something he can maybe do a little bit about.

"Um, I wasn't gonna-" he lifts an arm up to lean his elbow against the wall, hoping the pause to change his posture will give him a second to figure out what it was he was gonna' say. "When I thought you were, you know."

He points a finger at his temple and winds it in a backward circle, which feels loads better than actually admitting out loud just how shitty a job he did at trusting his brother.

"I wasn't gonna', you know, actually use any of that stuff. On you. Just so we're clear. I just had it, you know. I just still had it. I- I wouldn't'a done anything with it. You, you know that, right?" He tries on a we're-all-friends-here sort of grin. 'Cause they are. Friends again. So that's good.

Ford wants, very much, to say he can take Stan at his word. He wants to say he knows his brother well enough to tell if he's being truthful or just reading a line.

He wants to say, with conviction, that Stan may be a dishonest man but he draws the line at lying to his own flesh and blood.

He wants to say this, but it's hard. Not because Stanley has given him any particular reason to distrust him, but because his ability to trust another living being has been very recently fucked all to pieces and that's not something that can be so easily fixed by a day's worth of reconciliation.

At the very least, Ford can comfortably say his brother at least deserves the benefit of doubt - not only for hopeful, sentimental reasons, but because over the past day and a half he's more than proved that he deserves it.

Huffing out a small, amused breath, Ford matches Stans's awkward smile with a smaller, wearier version of his own and cards a hand through his hair, which desperately needs a proper brushing but will just have to settle for his fingers.

"I know I wouldn't have blamed you, if you did."

He lets his hand drop back to his side, and sure enough his hair springs back up as surely as though he had never combed it back at all.

"Anyone else would've had me locked up in an asylum by now."

Stan's posture loosens and his smile widens a little in relief. That's not exactly an 'I believe you' but Stan don't get much of that these days anyway. At this point in his life not being blamed for shit feels almost like the same thing as being believed, especially when the person saying it ain't even annoyed about it. So that's okay.

He slouches against the wall, his smile going playful and the relief making him forget to watch his mouth as close as he's been trying to. He huffs a laugh.

"Like hell I'd wanna' break out of a place like that twice." He pushes off from the wall, speaking over his shoulder before he heads out to his car to get the goods. "I mean, I'd have to sneak in and get you out after five minutes, you know that right? That kinda' shithole can't handle the guys who are supposed to be there, no way they could handle you."

He gives his brother a two-fingered wave. "I'll just be a minute."

After about five or maybe ten-ish minutes he's back and spreads across the comforter an array of pill bottles. All look very neat and official, and some of that even holds up when you look at 'em close. Most of 'em even have insides that match their labels except for a couple that, in context, obviously won't. Probably Ford doesn't have much use for, say, allergy medication, or whatever. "I brought more than just downers 'cause uh, I don't know what Mr. Asshat From The Great Beyond is doin' to your head, exactly, so figured you'd know more than me about what might help."

There's a story there, in that offhand comment about having done that sort of thing before. Ford can only begin to imagine the circumstances which might have lead his brother to be committed to a mental institution, though if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say it was probably some sort of bizarre misunderstanding resulting from A. Stan's eccentric behavior or B. An elaborate scheme gone horribly wrong. Or right, depending on whether or not landing himself in the loony bin was Stan's intention all along.

After all, he had to get his hands on all those medications somehow, and Ford has never known his brother to do anything conventionally.

When the man in question returns with an absolutely obscene amount of ill-gotten prescription medications, Ford can't help but smile slightly and let out an amused exhale through his nose. It's not quite a laugh, but it's in the same ball park which has to count for something.

He swears to God, if Stanley actually went undercover as a mental patient just so he could raid a pharmacy, he'll eat his hat.

"Honestly, your guess is about as good as mine." He admits, before picking up a bottle at random and squinting at its label only to immediately set it aside once he realizes it's a barbiturate.

He's desperate, but he's not that desperate.

"As far as I'm aware there are no drugs on the market - black or otherwise - that can effectively prevent a person from dreaming."

He turns over another bottle, then another, inspecting each label quickly but thoroughly.

"So, failing that, I figure we may as well go in the opposite direction and see if there isn't something that will make my dreamscape so unstable that Bill won't be able to exert his control over it."

He pauses, looking up from one of the orange bottles to level his brother with a comically deadpan expression.

"In other words, before I go to sleep I might need to be about an eight out of ten on the Balls Scale of Trippiness."

He doesn't know how he manages to say that with a straight face, but he does, despite the powerful urge to smile at his own joke.

Stanley snorts, the snort grows into a full on laugh, and he plops himself down onto the bed, the bottles bouncing a little before the mattress settles. He grins at his brother, grins wide, disbelieving and kind of thrilled. A joke. An honest to god joke. Look at that. "By the time we finish up here you'll be a world expert on the old Balls Scale. You might even be able to make it into an official science thing. Write some, you know, big paper on it."

He picks up the pill bottles one by one, looks at the label, puts them down. "An eight, huh? You're gonna' wanna' be asleep before that hits. Think you can, uh, manage that on your own or should we try to finagle somethin'?" Stan winds the bottle in one hand and the bottle in another around each other, the hand-signal for 'finagling'. Finagling with chemical assistance. Round and round the bottle goes, and where it stops, nobody knows if your brother has a drug problem.

Right. Whatever. Drugged into a hallucination coma is probably better than going nuts from not sleeping, anyway.

Stan's laugh isn't a gentle thing - that smoker's rasp he had when they were kids has grown into a full-blown growl, and now any vocalization he makes sounds as though it's being made through a throat full of gravel. It's not exactly pleasing to the ear, at least not by conventional standards, but Ford Pines has never been a man of convention.

To him, hearing Stan laugh feels an awful lot like catching an old favorite on the radio only to realize that he can't remember all the words- which shouldn't discomfit him as much as it does, considering that's just what happens when you go without hearing something for over a decade.

Still, it's strange to Ford to think he would ever need a refresher to familiarize himself with a sound he feels he should know by heart, time and absence be damned.

"As a general rule of thumb, you should never mix prescriptions without knowing how they interact, so--"

He reaches out, aiming to casually swipe at one of Stan's hands and snatch the bottle away from him.

"Until I can verify I'm not inventing a spectacular new brand of poison, no. There will be no finagling, chemical or otherwise."

Despite shooting Stan down, he still offers him a small, amused smile.

"Besides, at this point I've racked up so much sleep debt it's a wonder I don't pass out every time I shut my eyes to blink."

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